Collaborators
We here at Blue Crab Boulevard spend vast amounts of time and energy trying to warn people about the menace that is the Animal Uprising™. It is particularly difficult when we uncover evidence of human collaborators, since these turncoats are increasing the danger for us all. In this case, the behavior is particularly egregious, too. Training amphibious tigers is evil.
"Meat motivation," Nancy Chan, spokeswoman for Six Flags Discovery Kingdom just north of San Francisco told AFP. "That is what gets Odin into that tank."
The tiger does not mind testing his lungs for a few chunks of raw horsemeat, but he has been known to lift his tail and spray the sunburned camera wielders when they crowd his island.
A parched wall of bamboo screens his domain from the cars rushing by on a nearby highway.
The strapping 202-kilogram (445-pound) cat is named for the chief god of Norse mythology, and park goers gulp down red slushy beverages while braving the 38-degree Celsius (100 Fahrenheit) heat for a glimpse of his antics.
"Someday parks like Six Flags may be the only places to see animals like these," said Drelick.
Where wild tigers once numbered close to 100,000, their numbers have dwindled to less than 5,000. Some scientists, said Chris Drelick, a new trainer at the park, believe that wild tigers could be extinct in a decade due to habitat loss and rampant poaching.
The last known wild white tiger, the result of a combination of recessive genes, was shot in 1958.
Trainers regularly leash the tigers and stroll them around the grounds. The claw marks on some trees indicate the cats' preferred scratching posts.
Odin prowls his domain to the strains of music fit for a Hollywood version of a Roman battle scene, while Lee Munro, the park's head trainer and "chief explorer" offers the tiger sips of low fat milk from a blue baby bottle.
Munro raised the cat since he was two-weeks-old, and though slight in stature, has built a bond with Odin based on mutual trust.
Munro hurls hunks of meat the size of softballs into a glass walled pool, and Odin pounces into the water, diving for treats with a strange expression that could be taken for excitement, while the crowd shrieks with joy.
You bet there's meat motivation involved. Just wait until these show up at a crowded beach some sunny afternoon. Plenty of meat to eat there. (We think Spielberg should direct a new movie, just to raise public awareness. We'd call it Paws.) The reporters obviously think SCUBA tigers are cute, we beg to differ. This is teaching skills that cats, especially really, really large cats, have no business learning. Cats are supposed to be afraid of water - that's nature's way of protecting us all from being dragged under the surface of the water and eaten by 445 pounds of waterlogged feline. Waterlogged, hungry feline.
By Roz, Tuesday, 19 June , 2007 @ 8:20 am
I have just posted some links to your latest dispatches from the Front. Gaius, you are truly carrying out a public service.
By Chris, Tuesday, 19 June , 2007 @ 8:25 am
Da-DUM. Da-DUM.
Wasn’t it convenient that Chief Brody showed up for his new assignment and along came the shark?
By Gaius, Tuesday, 19 June , 2007 @ 8:33 am
Aw, shucks. Just trying to help.